Klopp on Sadio Mané Injury: “Not Very Positive”

A day after he was meant to have scans done to determine the seriousness of his knee injury, the club are still in the dark over Sadio Mané's status. The swelling has still not gone down, and that is almost certainly a bad sign for those hoping to see him play again this season. What's certain, though, is he won't be playing soon.

"It's not very positive, but we cannot say what it is exactly," Klopp told journalists gathered at his pre-match press conference ahead of Liverpool's match against Bournemouth on Wednesday. "We will have to wait a little bit to see. It's not 100% clear yet, but I can say for sure that he won't be involved with us tomorrow."

Mané, even in a best case scenario where the swelling goes down and no significant damage is found, isn't going to be facing Bournemouth tomorrow, Stoke on Saturday, or West Brom a week after that. It's a major loss for a Liverpool side that know they need to keep winning to hold on to their tenuous grip of a top four spot.

They currently sit third, a point ahead of Manchester City, but City have a game in hand. Meanwhile, a six point gap between them and Manchester United in fifth is misleading due to United having two games in hand. If the Reds can keep winning, goal differential would likely secure top spot even if their opponents both won out.

"Losing Sadio on Saturday was like, ‘Oh my God, can't we have one day where everything is perfect?" Klopp added. "But it happened already three days ago so we can get used to the situation and we still have wonderful players to choose. Our job now is to find the solution and I work on finding solutions all the time.

"When a knee is swollen, it's not often I hear afterwards that it's nothing. But even then, or especially then, we have to handle it. We wait for a final assessment. As long as we have 11 players to start then everything is fine."